The Thing | John Carpenter | 1982

The Thing was not well received upon release but has acquired a solid cult status in the years that have followed. The main reason for its poor reception is considered to be that ET; The Extra Terrestrial (released almost at the same time), foreshadowed it portraying aliens from another planet as benign and even friendly. After audiences saw alien beings as creatures to be befriended – The Thing is a hard movie and concept to stomach.

There is nothing whatsoever cute about The Thing – it is however a work of art. What makes it so is the fact that the director saw fit to stick to his vision of keeping to the original short story ‘Who Goes There?’ by John W Campbell, and not just issue a retread of the 1952 classic of the same name that so scarred and inspired John as a four year old child.

The result is a staggering piece of work that fits squarely within the Sci fi Horror genre – its brother and sister are The Fly (David Cronenberg), and Alien (Ridley Scott). The special effects in this film are unique (the SFX in The Fly looks a little ropey at times), and the then 22year old prodigy Rob Bottin was the man in charge of bringing us such delights as a head that grows legs and turns into a spider and a torso that opens and shuts cutting off a mans arms. The FX are still as fresh as they were in ’82, however their creator worked so hard on them that he required hospitalisation after the shoot had finished. At Carpenter’s request.

The movie works on another level as a tense and taught psychological thriller throwing paranoia and lack of trust into an environment ripe for escalating tensions.

The Thing starts with a helicopter chasing a husky, randomly shooting at the hound at a US Natural Science station in Antarctica populated by 12 isolated men. The dog escapes being killed. The helicopter and its firing occupant do not survive and the dog goes on to inhabit the base carrying an alien virus which enables the host to mutate, morph into, and imitate any living creature.

MacReady (Kurt Russell) and Dr. Copper (Richard Dysart) go to the Norwegian outpost where the helicopter and dog came from to see what has started this off. They find an odd mutant which looks like a human being mid-metamorphosis. They bring it back and an autopsy is performed. The dog however, is in the pound on base being looked after by Clarke (Richard Masur), but the dog starts to mutate.

‘I don’t know what the hell is in there – but it’s weird and pissed off.’

Another explanation of what they all have on they hands comes from the doctor...

‘What we’re talking about here is a life form that imitates others, absorbs them, digests them……’

The use of flame throwers from this point on features a lot in this movie as do tension and accusations. The action in terms of who gets infected and when comes thick and fast and the journey to the end is relentlessly taught.

Incidentally, the dog effects were masterminded by Stan Winston who had never used puppetry before working on The Thing.

The movie was shot in below 20 temperatures in Port Stewart – the most Northerly part of British Columbia. The set itself had to be built during the summer with filming extremely difficult in the worst of conditions much later in the winter. The result though – the spartanly populated camp, with no neighbours in the middle of no-where adds to the Cabin Feveresque feel of the film. John Lloyd – the production designer did the necessary research to know how people live in these sorts of situations and Carpenter thought it would be better if the film consisted of purely men – no women. It is the better for it. The dynamics play better.

Bennings (Peter Maloney) is first. The rest is a straightforward process of elimination.

They are up against it – like the crew in Aliens – against a malevolent being out to conquer via parasitical means. An interesting subplot is the behaviour of Blair (A. Wilford Brimley), a studied and quiet man who has gone to the computer to look at the odds of survival. A very basic computer simulation informs Blair of the numbers and facts: there is a great chance that one – at least of them is infected and that there is a further chance of the world being infected at 75%. This sends Blair off the wall and he is incarcerated for the main body of the action. He has kept notes though, that the rest of them refer to in his absence.

There is a decision made to find out who amongst them may be infected by doing a blood test of the dwindling survivors. But someone has got to the blood stores – so a DIY measure is done with the now suspected MacReady putting a blow torched wire to samples in Petra dishes.

This is the best section of the film as there are still quite a few of them still left but the paranoia is at its height. Three of the survivors are tied to chairs whist this test is carried out: one of them is infected and starts to morph whilst the other two are trapped horrified.

As one by one they go – there becomes an emphasis on damage limitation instead of survival. The focus is now on Blair – who in spite of being locked up for insanity is the most suspected. It takes MacReady to know and realise that none of them will, could or should get out alive and that the post should really be blown up to save humanity. The ending is bleak with just two men left looking at each other watching and waiting to see what happens next.

There was an alternative ending put together and shot by Carpenter which had MacReady as the lone survivor being picked up and taken to mainland to have his blood tested for it to be proved safe. This was put to focus audiences, but their response didn’t really matter. In the final analysis, he believed that the ending as it was, met more succinctly with the short story he consistently wished to be true to. As it is we are left with the fear than one of the survivors could be infected and that we could or should be next. This fits with the film’s purpose as metaphor for modern paranoia: be it aliens or disease or our neighbour – we should be on our guard.

Gail Spencer